Love and Friendship

Emmy's son Freddy is in nursery school. She falls out of love with her husband. Her husband, Holman Turner, is an instructor at Convers College. Previously Emmy always found herself in Convers or at Convers College in the summer. Members of her family thought of the place as their spiritual home. A Mrs. Rabbage arrives at the house to clean. Houses owned by the college are rented out to the faculty in accordance with rank. Holman and Emmy are able to afford to rent on their own since Emmy has her own investment-derived income. Too, they have two cars. The couple makes a ceremony of the cocktail hour. The Humanities C course at Convers is famous. All incoming instructors are compelled to teach it and freshman are compelled to take it. Holman wants to discover the inner power politics of the course and of his department. He is equipped since he understands the Socratic method. Hum C reminds Emmy of Emerson's "Self-Reliance". Emmy's family, the Stockwells, are college donors and all of the men of the family attend the school. The climate of Convers has been described as worse than Edinburgh. Holman and Emmy attend a party at the Fenns' house. Julian and Miranda are not ready for their guests. Their children, Charles, Richard, and Katie, have let the cat, Hecate, indoors and she has made a mess. At dinner Holman realizes that both he and Miranda have moved up in terms of social class. Emmy and Miranda become friends and Emmy visits Miranda in order to escape from the talkative Mrs. Rabbage. The old stove at the Fenns' house causes a fire. The college stands to lose money since the house is not properly insured. It is maintained the family is at fault and Julian's rudeness leads to his loss of employment at Convers. Julian Fenn and the others have been told that they are at Convers to deal with ideas. A friend tells Emmy that she has imaginary scruples and guilts that she has picked up from her husband. It is improper, the instructors of Hum C are told, to incite students to take action. The author uses dialogue, other conventional means, and an epistolary device to drive the story. It is droll fare.

I just finished reading this book which was published forty years ago. I love the book because it is a preternaturally accurate and insightful portrayal of Amherst College as it existed in the mid-1950s. I know because I was a student at Amherst in the class of '57. There are many characters who are instantly identifiable as real people at Amherst, such as James Merrill and the renowned (or infamous) professor Theodore Baird ["Oswald McBain"]. I don't know how enjoyable the book will be for readers without an Amherst connection. But for me, it's wonderful, because I disliked Amherst College as much as many of the novel's major characters do, and as Alison Lurie herself obviously did when she was there, married to an English instructor. I'm happy because, when my classmates and I are gone, posterity will remember Amherst as I knew it and as Ms. Lurie has depicted it. Ah, redemption!

I just finished reading this book which was published forty years ago. I love the book because it is a preternaturally accurate and insightful portrayal of Amherst College as it existed in the mid-1950s. I know because I was a student at Amherst in the class of '57. There are many characters who are instantly identifiable as real people at Amherst, such as James Merrill and the renowned (or infamous) professor Theodore Baird ["Oswald McBane"]. I don't know how enjoyable the book will be for readers without an Amherst connection. But for me, it's wonderful, because I disliked Amherst College as much as many of the novel's major characters do, and as Alison Lurie herself obviously did when she was there, married to an English instructor. I'm happy because, when my classmates and I are gone, posterity will remember Amherst as I knew it and as Ms. Lurie has depicted it. Ah, redemption!

Alison Lurie hasn't the greatest of ranges as a writer, but is top rate at what she does. This is a good example of her writing, perhaps not as good as "Foreign Affairs" or "Lorin Jones", but well worth reading.Like most of Ms. Lurie's novels, this one has a great sense of place (New England), characters you can care about and periodic flashes of humour. It's not exactly set in academia (cf. "The War Between the Tates"), but a New England university is at the centre of the novel. The almost mystical relationship betweeen Convers College and its graduates / staff is beautifully evoked, as are some of the petty bitching between its academics. By the end of the novel, I felt I'd been there.